NOVANEWS

Evenhandedness, like justice, isn’t in some people’s vocabulary. It certainly plays no part in the Israel-Palestine peace process. Despite the occupying military’s continuing atrocities, UK policy remains: “be nice to the Israelis, kick the Palestinians in the balls”.

The Zionist stooges at the top of the UK government are well known and currently fighting like rats in a sack over Brexit while the never-ending misery of the Palestinians goes almost unnoticed. So, I’d hoped for something better from the likes of Lord Ahmad, a Muslim (of Pakistani origin) in the House of Lords who serves as Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Muslim-Zionist toad

They say a leopard cannot change its spots. But politicians can and some do, often for the worse. Even Muslims do, some becoming that oddest of oddballs, a Muslim-Zionist. So what are we to make of Tariq Ahmad (pictured above), now a Conservative peer with the title Baron Ahmad of Wimbledon? Since his elevation to the Lords he seems to have joined the ranks of those anxious to downplay Israel’s crimes and guarantee the rogue state’s impunity.

For example, in a debate on the Israel-Palestine conflict in March he said:

Any party that believes in the destruction of Israel of course cannot be party to a peace process. The UK government have made it clear that, before taking part in any peaceful negotiations on the two-state solution, any party at the negotiating table needs to agree the right of Israel to exist.

But what about the Palestinians’ right to exist? Lord Ahmad must know that he’s talking about the fate of his Muslim brothers and sisters there, not to mention the Christian communities. The UK government stubbornly refuses to recognise their Palestinian state.

And once again we’ve tossed that hoary old chestnut, a “two state solution”. Given the many irreversible facts on the ground the Israelis have been allowed to create with impunity, what would that look like? Yeah, too messy and ridiculous to even begin to describe. So, why keep pushing it as a “solution”, Binyamin Netanyahu has said repeatedly that there will be no Palestinian state during his tenure as Israel’s prime minister.

Furthermore, there’s no prospect of Israel willingly giving up Palestinian territory it illegally occupied and effectively annexed in 1967 and which must be returned if Palestinians are ever to enjoy freedom and independence. Netanyahu has declared:

We will not withdraw from one inch… There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the land of Israel… This is the inheritance of our ancestors. This is our land… We are here to stay forever.

And that from somebody who, I suspect, has no ancestral links whatsoever to the ancient land of Israel – like most of his vile comrades.

So, the Israeli government too is disqualified from any peace process.

As for the US administration, it is so stuffed with Zionist pimps, has fouled up so many peace moves, is so discredited by its past and present performances and so contemptuous of international law that it too has no place in the peace process.

It is for the International Court of Justice to decide

Indeed, none of Israel’s allies should be involved. The fate of Israel/Palestine is not a matter for meddlesome nations with vested interests seeking to override UN resolutions and reshape the Middle East to suit themselves. Trump especially, with his warped mentality, deeply unpleasant connections and half-witted “ultimate deal” or “deal of the century”, should remove himself for everyone’s good. It is for the International Court of Justice to decide on the basis of international law. But we never hear about law and justice from the UK government, or the US administration, in relation to the Holy Land. Why is that, Lord Ahmad? Don’t we believe in it any more? Or are we too yellow to uphold it, too morally bankrupt to pursue it?

When it comes to “agreeing Israel’s right to exist”, I presume Lord Ahmad knows that Israel refuses to declare its borders. So, which Israel would he like us all to agree to? Israel behind the borders allocated by the UN Partition Plan? Israel behind the 1967 armistice borders? Israel with its boot on every Palestinians’s neck and illegally occupying all Palestinian territory? Or Israel seen by many as a brazen Racist endeavour that has just passed laws declaring itself “the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it”?

Let’s not forget that the new state of Israel’s admission to the UN in 1949 was conditional upon honouring the UN Charter and implementing UN General Assembly resolutions 181 and 194. It has failed to meet these obligations and to this day repeatedly violates provisions and principles of the charter.

When it comes to “agreeing Israel’s right to exist”, I presume Lord Ahmad knows that Israel refuses to declare its borders. So, which Israel would he like us all to agree to? Israel behind the borders allocated by the UN Partition Plan? Israel behind the 1967 armistice borders?

Israel does not even comply with the rules of the EU-Israel Association Agreement of 1995 which require adherence to the principles of the UN Charter and “respect for human rights and democratic principle (which) constitute an essential element of this agreement” in return for trading privileges. Here too Israel snatches the privileges without delivering on the obligations.

So, why would anybody feel obliged to agree the entity’s right to exist?

Bringing justice to the Holy Land is a basic test of humanity. We British have failed that test for 100 years, starting with Balfour’s infamous document in 1917which created what Lord Sydenham called “a running sore in the East” by promising not the Jewish people but Zionist extremists a homeland for Jews in Palestine without consulting the indigenous Muslim and Christian Arabs. Britain repeated the betrayal in 1948 by abandoning our Mandate responsibilities and leaving Jewish terror militia to plunder, steal and murder their way through Palestine, grabbing all the territory they could lay hands on and putting the Arab population to flight.

Ever since, we have rewarded Israel’s non-stop crimes with “favoured nation” status instead of punishing its appalling cruelty, naked aggression and utter disregard of international law, while it continues to impose a crushing blockade on the Palestinian territories (not just Gaza). We still refuse to apply thesanctions we wouldn’t hesitate slapping on other delinquent countries.

Most other governments in Western Christendom fail the H-test even though their inaction means there may soon be no Christians left in the place where Christianity began.

Betrayal: boycott Hamas but welcome Israel’s thugs

Earlier this month Baroness Jenny Tongue put down a written question (HL9144): “To ask Her Majesty’s Government… when they last discussed with the leaders of Hamas the position of that organisation on Israel.”

Answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon: “The UK retains a policy of no contact with Hamas in its entirety.”

Why is that? Hamas’s political wing is NOT proscribed by the UK as a terrorist organisation. Hamas was elected to govern in full and fair elections last held in 2006, so is not a usurper of power. It has simply enforced its democratic right to rule, much to the annoyance of Israel, the US and the UK. The US-UK-Israel axis prefer working with the quisling Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the defeated Fatah, who has long overstayed his official term as president and should have been consigned to Palestine’s political wastepaper basket years ago.

Hamas has offered the occupying Israelis peace if they get back behind their 1967 border in compliance with UN resolutions and international law. Why does the UK government have a problem with that, unless the axis plan is to keep trouble brewing to buy time for Israel to cement its ill-gotten gains, grab even more Palestinian land and resources and make its occupation permanent? Does Lord Ahmad seriously think that mumbling the same old “peace process” mantra still provides cover?

Hamas is a legitimate player and apparently enjoys more credibility among Palestinians than Abbas’s Fatah which still controls the failed Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organisation. If Britain talks to one it should talk to the other.

Ask yourself, my dear Lord Ahmad: who in the Holy Land has the most blood on their hands?

Posted in Palestine Affairs, ZIO-NAZI, UKComments Off on Bringing justice to the Holy Land is a basic test of humanity: The UK Foreign Office still fails it

NOVANEWS

GHADA AGEEL

A Palestinian woman walks past fresh graffiti painted on Israel’s separation wall in Bethlehem on June 22, 2018, by Palestinian street artist Taqi Sbateen depicting Razan al-Najjar (c), the paramedic from Gaza who was killed by an Israeli sniper during the Great March of Return in Gaza. (THOMAS COEX/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Special Report

By Ghada Ageel

THE GREAT MARCH OF RETURN has posed new questions: where is the international community and where are its leaders?

I was born and grew into adulthood at Gaza’s Khan Younis camp, until leaving in 2006 to complete my Ph.D. in refugee studies. That year, on a three-week U.S. speaking tour, I spoke to diverse audiences about the situation in occupied Palestine, describing the daily realities of life under Israel’s military occupation.

On several occasions after my presentation, I was asked: “Where is Palestinian peaceful resistance? Why is there no Palestinian Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King?”

I was puzzled by such questions, for nonviolent struggle is very deeply rooted in Palestinian history. It was widespread in the 1930s during Britain’s colonization of Palestine, with the famous general strike—the longest in modern history—and boycott movements, both of which were brutally suppressed by British authorities. Numerous strike leaders were ultimately killed, imprisoned or exiled.

Nonviolent resistance has been a mainstay of the Palestinian struggle since the destruction of Palestine and the creation of Israel. After the 1967 Naksa, under Israel’s colonization of yet more Palestinian lands conquered by its army, and up to the 1987 intifada, Palestinians repeatedly invented creative outlets for resisting violent occupation.

A major channel of resistance was developing alternative institutions and leadership. In response, the occupying power deported hundreds of Palestinians, including municipal leaders, university professors and leaders of women’s organizations and trade unions.

Legal scholar Lisa Hajjar documented the detention of more than half a million Palestinian residents of the occupied territories from 1967 to 1987 (at a time when the total Palestinian population there was about 1.5 million), the deportation of more than 2,000 Palestinians and the demolition by Israel of more than 1,560 Palestinian homes. All forms of educational and cultural freedom were tightly circumscribed.

The Palestinian peaceful resistance continued in different forms leading up to the first intifada of 1987, when thousands engaged in collective civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance, supported by local committees all over Palestine.

Many aspects of the second intifada were acts of nonviolent resistance, including the weekly protests held since the early 2000s in the West Bank villages of Bi’lin, Ni’lin, Budrus and Jayyus, to name but a few. Entire villages have embraced nonviolence as the only strategy for resisting the occupation.

Over the years, Bi’lin has become well known for introducing creative tactics of nonviolent resistance. Protesters have chained themselves to olive trees slated to be uprooted to make way for the separation wall. They have locked themselves in cages placed on their land, compelling the military to haul them away with cranes. They have used performance and humor, or chained themselves to steel pillars on the ground.

Palestinian nonviolence has been practiced for more than a century now, in the face of changing oppressors, and continues today despite Israel’s invariably brutal response—but world memory seems short.

My answer in 2006 to questions about Palestinian MLKs and Gandhis was as simple and short as it is today. Based on what I’ve experienced firsthand in the camps of Gaza, I responded that thousands of them had been shot and killed by Israel, tens of thousands had been disabled, and hundreds of thousands had been jailed.

Today, 12 years after that speaking tour, Palestine is presenting the world with another model of its people’s old, yet new, peaceful resistance. Since March 30, tens of thousands of Palestinian MLKs have emerged in full view of the world and heads of Western governments, demonstrating peacefully at the fence of the Gaza ghetto. They have demanded that the world pay attention to more than a decade of an illegal, immoral and inhumane blockade that has taken the lives of hundreds of innocents and brought Gaza’s economy to its knees.

The Great March of Return has also called for the recognition of Palestinians’ inalienable right to return to the homes and lands from which they were driven seven decades ago.

These peaceful demonstrations and sit-ins, held in the buffer zone imposed by Israel hundreds of yards from the outer perimeter—the cage—of Gaza’s fence, have been a legendary epic of resistance, celebrating Palestinian survival, traditions, culture and history. Protesters of all ages have sung, danced, shared stories, flown kites, cooked traditional meals and recounted memories of what was once their homeland, all the while praying for and dreaming of return.

DAYS OF UNITY AND HOPE

The tent memorializing my village, Beit Daras, depopulated and demolished in 1948 [see June/July 2018 Washington Report p. 14], was full of villagers of all generations from various camps and towns in Gaza. They cooked the traditional maftoul, a couscous that was very popular in Beit Daras, and shared it with other villagers in nearby tents. They staged Palestinian weddings and danced the traditional dabka into the night. These were days of unity and hope, of happiness and dreams so long obliterated from Gaza’s daily life.

The jailer’s response has been brutal. Israeli army snipers, stationed behind multiple stretches of barbed wire, in jeeps and in military towers, fully armed and with no imminent threat to their lives, targeted demonstrators, killing at least 130 and wounding thousands more.

Some of my own relatives and friends are among the dead, as well as multiple paramedics, journalists, photographers and students. Those hunted down include women and children. On May 14 alone, Israeli forces killed 62 protesters and wounded more than 3,000.

While Palestinians are not numbers, these numbers reveal the heinous crime perpetrated against them as their freedom to nonviolently protest was mowed down by gunfire.

During the Great March of Return, Palestinians have eloquently told the world—including the dysfunctional Palestinian Authority—that Palestinian civil society is alive, strong and capable, despite concerted efforts to sideline the issue of Palestine. The question is no longer: “Where is Gaza’s civil society and where are its leaders?” Rather, the Great March of Return has powerfully posed different questions: “Where is the world? Where is the international community? Where are its leaders?”

DENIALS FROM WORLD LEADERS

As Gaza sounded its mighty scream on May 14, its Gandhis were picked off one by one by Israeli snipers, while just dozens of miles from the fence, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump legalized Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem in an abhorrent violation of international law. Once again, Western leaders pointedly looked away.

Israel’s response to this powerful move has continued and expanded the pattern of 1948, when its destruction and ethnic cleansing of Palestine turned Palestinians into the largest refugee group in the world. It is these refugees and their descendants who have been marching for their rights along the razor-wire fences penning in Gaza’s residents. It is these refugees and their descendants who are resetting the world agenda, at an inconceivable price, in the face of denials and dismissals from world leaders.

Sounding its amazingly resilient voice, Palestinian civil society is reaching out to the world’s civil society to call those leaders to account.

NOVANEWS

GIDEON LEVY

Special Report

By Gideon Levy

WE WILL VIOLATE this law proudly. We have an obligation to violate this law, like any law with a black flag waving over it. We will not stop documenting. We will not stop photographing. We will not stop writing—with all our might.

Human rights organizations will do the same too and like them, we hope, Palestinian eyewitnesses, who will of course be punished more than anyone. According to the proposed law passed June 17 by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation [but also calling for some of the wording to be changed], individuals documenting the actions of Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the West Bank may be sent to jail for as much as five years, under certain circumstances.

A nice initiative, MK Robert Ilatov, democrat from the well-known freedom party Yisrael Beiteinu. Your bill proves just how much the IDF has something to hide, what it has to be embarrassed about, what there is to cover up, to the point where even the camera and pen have become its enemies. Ilatov against the terrorism of the cameras and Israel against the truth.

At a time when the Israel Police are outfitting its officers with body cameras, which have proved themselves when it comes to reducing police violence, according to the force, Israel is trying to remove the cameras from the occupied territories, the real arena of its disgrace—so the truth will not be exposed and the injustice will be minimized.

Without cameras, the Elor Azaria affair would not have existed; without cameras there will be many more Azarias. This is exactly the goal of the law: to have many Azarias. Not that the documentation manages to prevent anything. The IDF and the public no longer get very excited about human rights violations and war crimes in the territories, and most journalists also don’t take an interest in them any longer.

To think that breaking bones with a stone in front of the cameras of an American network caused a scandal during the first intifada. Today, no one becomes upset about similar pictures; indeed, it’s doubtful whether an effort would even be made to publish them. But Israel’s soldiers learned to treat the camera and the pen as the enemy. If once we presented our press credentials at the checkpoints, today we hide them so the soldiers don’t catch us in all our iniquities. Once we were even arrested.

Covering the occupation today already entails violating the law. Israelis are forbidden to enter [Palestinian-controlled] Area A and journalists must “coordinate” their entry with the IDF spokesman’s office. But because there is no such thing as journalism with coordination, except for the journalism of military correspondents in Israel—we ignore this ridiculous order, lie at the checkpoints, deceive, sneak in, use bypass tactics and go everywhere in the West Bank.

Where were you, asks the soldier after every visit to Hebron? In Kiryat Arba. What did you do there? We have friends there. Because it is a negligible handful of journalists who still bother to go, the authorities shut their eyes.

But technology and the B’Tselem NGO have given birth to a new enemy: video cameras that are handed out to Palestinian volunteers, and in their wake cellphones too, in the hands of every Palestinian or Machsom Watch volunteer. Suddenly it is harder to cover up and lie. Suddenly it is impossible to easily invent knives and other imaginary dangers after every futile killing. Who will save us? Ilatov and his proposed law, which has of course earned the encouragement of another well-known democrat, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

In 2003, when IDF soldiers sprayed live fire on the armored car with Israeli plates “press” signs, the then-IDF spokeswoman, Brig. Gen. Miri Regev, asked the editor-in-chief of Haaretz, who urgently tried to bring about an end to the incident: “What are they even doing there?”

Since then, Israel has not stopped asking this question. Now the Knesset could very well take action: not just against the press, with whom it still uses caution, but mostly against human rights organizations and Palestinian residents, the last witnesses for the prosecution against the occupation. Israel is telling them: just no incontrovertible evidence.

In the explanatory notes for the bill, it says, justifiably, that prosecution witnesses and eyewitnesses intend to “break the spirit of Israeli soldiers and residents.” This is exactly the goal: to break the spirit that views Azaria as a victim and hero, which thinks that the killing of 120 unarmed people is legal, and does not want to know, hear or see what is done every day in all our names, in our country’s backyard.

Coming soon: a law that will ban criticism of the IDF. Ilatov is already drafting it; most Israelis are certainly in favor. We will of course refuse to go along with it, too.

NOVANEWS

HANI ALMADHOUN

Special Report

By Hani Almadhoun

“I THINK WE HAVE arrived in Guantanamo Bay,” my wife said upon arriving at the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing this past May. Together with our two children, my wife and I had driven through an area where massive destruction had taken place: armored vehicles and tanks hovered around, firing left and right, with checkpoints so close together it would be funny if it was not so sad.

We had arrived at Cairo International Airport around 8 a.m., and were picked up by our driver by 9. We decided to drive straight to Rafah. It took us nine hours to travel the 230 miles. The delay was largely caused by the at least 20 checkpoints, where our passports and luggage were searched, as well as the ferry crossing to the Sinai peninsula. Apparently all travelers headed into the Sinai face that mistreatment. Travelers like our family must wait by the ferry for an army vehicle escort, I was told, because some of these roads belong to the military.

Our driver knew the way like the back of his hand; he also knew how to deal with various army and police officers. He was a true local and wanted us to be comfortable. He dropped us off at the Rafah crossing around 6 p.m., just as the Egyptian officers were getting ready to break their Ramadan fast.

The officers went through our luggage and credentials quickly. After grabbing two packs of cigarettes without asking for permission, they led us into the waiting area. My wife and I were very excited to have made it so far and were sure we would get into Gaza. We had reached much further than we had when we tried to enter Gaza a few months earlier (see June/July 2018 Washington Report, p. 22), when we were denied entry due to a full-blown war in the Sinai.

We were the first to arrive on the Egyptian side, as the caravan of buses and vans transporting Palestinians to the crossing had not yet arrived. Because we had a local driver, were just one family, and had comparatively less luggage, we were able to get through the checkpoints quickly. After haggling with the luggage handlers and asking them questions, I learned no one really knew how long it would take us to be processed. “Tasaheel,” they kept saying—which means, “Who the hell knows!”

By around 7 p.m., most of the buses and other cars had arrived. We were still at the crossing, in the waiting area. We were a total of about 50 people, including the children. We spoke to a Palestinian family from Sweden, another from Austin, Texas, and a young engineer who lives in Saudi Arabia. There was an elderly woman who went to Egypt to see her grandkids, and a young man on crutches—all waiting in this dark and unclear area with the dirtiest bathrooms under the baking sun. I was told that, due to the restrictions on the movement of people, even the cleaning crew cannot make it to the Egyptian crossing.

The officers had not re-appeared after leaving to break their fast. Three hours later, there was still no sign of them. At about 10 p.m., an officer finally appeared and started checking our passports. The officers were keen on seeing our Palestinian IDs in addition to our passports. Had we not had Gaza IDs, we would not have been allowed into town. They also take pictures of anybody going in or out of Gaza. Of course, they had only one working laptop, so to say they were slow is an understatement.

We could hear the Palestinians who were leaving Gaza at the other end of the building. They were waiting to be either allowed into Egypt, deported to the airport, or denied entry into Egypt and sent back to Gaza. Then, at 3 a.m., the news came that we could board the buses and head to the Palestinian side—but not before we were asked to pay 300 Egyptian pounds in fees per passenger. I did manage to be the first one in line and the officer told everyone, this guy was here first—he had seen us come in. We also boarded the bus to Gaza first, which we also paid for.

I began to tear up knowing I would finally be able to see my parents and siblings. When we arrived on the Palestinian side, we were moved by the professionalism of the officers and how they went out of their way to help travelers. We were whisked through the various official stops, then picked up our luggage and breezed through customs. Twenty minutes later, the van my family had hired to pick us up arrived. The driver turned out to be an old neighbor of ours—the first familiar face. My eyes were wet with tears and the girls were half asleep. “Let’s go to Palestine,” Zayna said before she dozed off.

As we exited the Rafah crossing into Gaza, we saw members of the local police force outside. They snagged our passports and photographed them. But we were in Gaza now, and we weren’t going to let anything ruin it for us. The van took us to the outside gateway, where anxious relatives were waiting. I was searching in the dark for my mother’s figure, as I knew she would wait all day if she had to for this moment. And then there she was, a bit older but as beautiful as I remember her.

My mother was standing on the side of the road, waiting in the dark for us. I quickly turned into mush, all tears and reddened eyes. As we embraced, I felt calmer than I have in years. She then embraced my girls, her grandkids, whom she had not yet met. We were all exhausted, but it was sweet and our emotions kept us going. Minutes later, we were on the road again, headed north where our families live.

We dropped off my wife in Gaza City to see her family and spend the night with them. After lots of kisses, hugs and smiles, we continued the trip north to Beit Lahia, where my family lives. Upon arriving around 5:30 a.m., I quickly realized much had changed, but that still it was the same familiar place. My dad was waiting at the door. He clearly had not slept and greeted me with an embrace. We stayed up for two hours chatting, and then I went to bed happy, surrounded by my family. The mixture of pride and joy in my parents’ eyes made all the trouble we had gone through worth it.

Before I went to sleep, I noticed my parents hooking wires into batteries like old pros. Because of Israeli restrictions and lack of funds, average homes in Gaza get four to six hours of electricity per day. As a result, people in Gaza must improvise. The wire-threaded batteries were one source of electricity. The use of “Lidaat,” tiny LED lights that require little energy but give ample light, is also prevalent.

The next day, around 3 p.m., my older sister, who could not wait any longer to greet me, woke me up. As soon as my mother saw me, she asked, “What would you like to have for Iftar?”—the meal we eat to break the Ramadan fast. My answer, as it always is, was seasoned rice and chicken. This would be a special meal: the first one I’d had with family in more than five years.

HOPE IN GAZA

After waking up, I wanted to spend every single minute with my mother. We did nothing except sit and talk. Shortly before sunset, I told her I wanted to visit my father at his store. I walked there and was happy to see him in his element, in the middle of the market where he owns a small grocery store. When we walked back home together I was struck by how few people were out walking. Because unemployment is so high, drivers are willing to take you from any one point to another for only a few cents.

As we walked home, I saw many young men in wheelchairs or on crutches. Too many fine young men and women who took a stand against Israel’s suffocating siege and the U.S. decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem now have scars for life, a daily reminder of these injustices. Many of those injured even had to pay for the ambulances that took them to the hospital, a sign of how the lack of basic social services is impacting society.

But not everything was doom and gloom. I witnessed, first hand, the amazing ways Palestinians are adapting to cruel and harsh conditions. They have adjusted their lives in ways that minimize the impact of destructive Israeli policies, like the electricity interruptions that last most of the day. For example, alternative energy is taking off in Gaza. Thanks to 319 days of sun, more and more homes are using solar power as a source of energy. Many institutions and schools in Gaza are also powered by the sun.

To outfit an average home in Gaza with solar panels costs between $2,000 and $5,000, depending on consumption and the size of the property. For those who cannot afford solar panels, there is a cheaper solution for about $600, an Uninterrupted Power Supply, known as UPS. This is essentially a large truck battery that can power most small home appliances (excluding refrigerators or heaters). It recharges whenever the electricity comes back on.

Most businesses, small and large, have their own large-scale power generators. Another option for power is what is known as an alternative power line. This is typically used in more upscale neighborhoods; the cost is quite high, with a kilowatt of electricity going for $1—at least seven times the price for using the regular electricity line. There are also cars running on cooking gas.

There were other encouraging signs. For example, local doctors, agronomists, and engineers have teamed up to address local problems created by the siege. Organic farming, greenhouses and vertical farming are all trending and making positive contributions to local markets. Because patients cannot be transported to hospitals in Israel and the West Bank, doctors in Gaza are undertaking more complicated procedures. As of last year, patients in Gaza have received locally performed open heart surgeries, as well as other vital operations.

On a daily basis, engineers in Gaza are working around arbitrary Israeli restrictions on building materials. I visited a water park where a local engineer has devised a way to make fake waves simulate the experience of swimming at the beach. Many Palestinians are afraid of swimming in the ocean itself because of polluted seawater. The best and cleanest part of the beach, “Sudanya,” happens to be near the border with Israel, but the road to get there is not paved. When I asked about this, the driver told me that Israel has refused to allow that part of the road to be paved for fear more traffic would enter the area.

Visitors to Gaza will notice the big presence of the government of Qatar. They undertake large projects and deliver amazing developments. They were the force that paved the entire coastal road in Gaza, except that northern part close to Israel which remains rugged and broken. They also built thousands of housing units in the south in Khan Younis, benefiting many families.

There are countless other projects which have been launched to alleviate the suffering of the people in Gaza. Such projects include theme parks, trampoline parks, swimming pools, soccer pitchers and chalets. The small-scale investors who own these spaces not only want to make a profit but also to give hope to the people.

I appreciated the improvement in Internet connectivity in Gaza, where the Israelis have limited data to 2G. Wifi services exist throughout the Strip, and tech-savvy entrepreneurs have set up local networks and hotspots in designated areas, and sell prepaid Internet cards at grocery stores. They have even found a way to deal with the power cuts, running routers, servers and extenders on batteries so that people can surf the Web in the dark. Thanks to these innovations, residents of Gaza consume many more Internet and cellular minutes than their peers in the West Bank, according to a Palestinian executive at a communication conglomerate with whom I spoke. He likened the situation to that of a prisoner who has just been given a calling card, and uses it to call any and everyone he knows.

Of course, poverty in Gaza remains oppressive. I found that people were poorer than in my previous visits. Salaries are cut more and more every year. Even those on welfare are getting smaller and smaller stipends. As a result, the local economy has crashed; many respected businessmen are sitting in jail or facing court orders because they can no longer meet their financial obligations [see p. 14]. Despite the financial situation, prices in Gaza are relatively high and comparable to other parts of the region. This situation, together with the lack of funds, has created a toxic brew. Still, the people of Gaza are not giving up. To make ends meet, many college graduates open stands selling coffee, hot drinks, corn and sweet potatoes on the beach to families. That might not be why these individuals went to school, but it puts food on the table. Other college graduates use the Internet to become free-lancers, while others are involved in digital currency trading.

ISRAEL’S LOOMING PRESENCE

This does not mean, however, that people in Gaza have resigned themselves to Israel’s occupation. While Gazans are divided over whether to support the Great March of Return, I saw young people flocking to the border fence every Friday to protest not only Israel’s actions, but also the stalemate.

Despite how hard they try to go about living their lives, Israel continuously reminds the people of Gaza that they are not free. The loud buzzing noise of Israeli drones is one tactic. Then, there is the shelling. Occasionally, the sound of the shelling was so close we frantically turned on the news to know how close it was to us. At least twice during our short stay, we were woken by bombardment: once at my family’s home in Beit Lahia, and another at our home in Gaza City. A third time, we were visiting an aunt and had to cut the visit short because the building shook and our girls were scared by the noise. We lied and told them it was fireworks.

Fear is hard to escape in Gaza. Lately, much of that fear has surrounded the Trump administration’s much publicized yet secret “deal of the century.” They fear that they might be pushed to settle in the Sinai. I have yet to meet anyone in Gaza who likes this idea, despite knowing their land is limited and real estate prices in Gaza are higher than those in Egypt. As people watch the Egyptian army clearing the Northern Sinai governate and razing houses, that prospect seems all too real. Others think that this might be preparation for an industrial zone area that offers them jobs.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are banned from leaving the Strip, by either the Israelis or the Egyptians, leaving them in a shrunken world roughly twice the size of Washington, DC. It is not surprising that many are hungry for visitors. With such limited opportunity to interact with the outside world, they long to hear about events and experiences in other places.

If you can, visit Gaza not only to show your solidarity with a people resilient in the face of Israeli occupation and repression—but to give joy to those who have been cruelly prevented, through no fault of their own, from meeting and interacting with people from around the world. The road to Gaza was especially hard and felt like an obstacle course and scavenger hunt in every sense of the word. What kept our family sane is that we had each other and we kept our eye on the prize, embracing our loved ones and telling the people of Gaza that we had really missed them.

Hani Almadhoun is director of donor development at American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA).

NOVANEWS

On today’s episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined from Managua, Nicaragua, by Max Blumenthal, the senior editor of Grayzone Project, bestselling author whose latest book is “The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza,” and co-host of the podcast “Moderate Rebels,” and Dan Kovalik, a human rights and labor lawyer who is the author of “The Plot to attack Iran.”

Nicaragua is in deep crisis since protests began three months ago as opponents of the government…See More

To learn more about the crisis in Nicaragua and the U.S.-backed effort to carry out a counter-revolution, listen to this informative interview with best-selling author and journalist Max Blumenthal and human rights and labor lawyer Dan Kovalik, who are in Managua. They appeared on Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear today to discuss the crisis, its real causes and the enduring popular support the Sandinistas enjoy among wide sectors of the population.

Today marks 39 years since the victory of the Sandinista revolution. Just as they did in the 1980s, in the present day local elites in alliance with U.S. imperialism are yet again engaged in a violent push to overthrow the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and president Ortega. The situation has been completely distorted by the corporate media.

In 1979, the FSLN overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. Somoza, and before him his father Luis, ruled the country through brutal force and facilitated the plunder of the country by U.S. corporations along with the enrichment of a tiny elite who sold out the country.

After the success of the revolution, the Sandinistas instituted progressive reforms aimed at redistributing the country’s wealth and asserting independence in foreign affairs. In response, the Reagan administration unleashed the terrorist paramilitary “Contras”, who waged a devastating war of attrition that led to tens of thousands of deaths. While the Sandinistas were removed from power in 1990, they continued to participate in the country’s political life and Daniel Ortega was re-elected president in 2006.

NOVANEWS

By Liberation Staff

Protest in Morocco following death of fish seller Mohcin Fikri

Liberation News spoke with activist Siham Byah, who was violently separated from her son Naseem by ICE earlier this year and deported to Morocco. Since she has been in Morocco she has been working to be reunited with her son and win asylum in the U.S. or Canada. Byah is also a militant activist with the Hirak movement against the Moroccan theocratic monarchy which is supported by U.S. imperialism.

Liberation News: The death of fish seller Mohcine Fikri in October of 2016 sparked a wave of protests in the Northern Rif region of Morocco, giving birth to the ‘Hirak Rif’ movement. Can you elaborate on the historical relationship that the Rif has had with the central government (Makhzen) and the Moroccan monarchy? Is Mohcine Fikri an isolated case of state terrorism?

Siham Byah: Ever since they sold Morocco out to France in the infamous protectorate, the Moroccan monarchy knew its popularity among Moroccans has taken a huge hit. Mohamed Ben Abdelkrim el Khattabi, or Moulay Mouhand as we call him, was a leader who appeared in the Rif, north of Morocco, with a revolutionary vision for all of North Africa: he studied the leftist ideology and had a vision of a free, democratic North African republic, free of monarchies and oligarchies. Of course he was a threat to the Moroccan monarchy, who bought its way back to lead Morocco after it conspired with the Spanish and the French in 1926 to use chemical weapons against the unarmed civilians of the Rif, in an effort to smoke out Moulay Mohand and put an end to the revolutionary republican ideology. So when Morocco got its official independence, which was similar to the one Pakistan got after the U.S. invasion of 2003, when the USA retreated from it, leaving a puppet president Hamid Karzai … The Alaouite monarchy was and still is that puppet that was left by the colonizers in order to protect their interests and ensure full economic surrender of Morocco. In fact, Morocco, to this day, still has to honor those “privileges” afforded by the monarchy in order for it to continue to exist after the Moroccan independence. The same way Israel “bought” Palestinian land at the Balfour treaty, it is customary for colonizers, when they see they are under a lot of pressure to leave and give back the lands they’ve stolen, for them to try to finagle that “one last deal” so they don’t walk away with nothing. The Moroccan Alaouite monarchy afforded France many advantages over Morocco’s natural resources, and priority in investment, in exchange for making sure the colonizers restore the Alaouites to the throne of Morocco, as opposed to letting Moroccans actually chose the way they want to be governed. As a result, The Riffians were baffled as to how can such a deal be made under their noses, and they protested, rightfully so, that this wasn’t what Moulay Mouhand wanted nor was it what they have fought so hard for. The Moroccan monarchy saw that as a defiance to its very existence, which it was, and responded in kind as is the case with every revolt, by kidnapping, killing, imprisoning, raping and also bombing the region.

Ever since, the entire region is deemed a military territory by a Royal Decree, giving the monarchy the right to militarize it and besiege it economically and developmentally, as it went in and bulldozed every last factory left by the Spaniards who colonized the region, and refused to build any type of infrastructure in there, forcing the majority of its people to migrate abroad. Even those who did and bring back their life savings, cannot get the proper permits to invest in anything substantial in the region. A small mom and pop coffee shop or boutique is okay, anything bigger that could revive the region and create significant job opportunities is strictly prohibited by the monarchy directly.

Further, and as a city with a huge and bountiful fishing port, Al Huceima is a city that was teeming with fishermen and fish mongers, until the king become the sole person that can issue fishing licenses (among MANY other abuses of power) at the willy0nilly, without having to involve the ministry of Fish and Wild game, which SHOULD in theory, be the institution that manages fishing licenses. The king, of courses, issues them to those he, himself has other financial interests with, leaving the local fisherman with NOTHING.

Mohcin Fikri, the fishmonger was not an isolated incident, it was the last in a series of state sanctioned terrorism that the Rif region (and other regions rich in natural resources, and a history of standing up to the oligarchy). Mohcin Fikri’s murder was witnessed by thousands, and was also caught on many cameras in the era of social media. It was the last straw in the heavy luggage the monarchy has been hauling on the backs of the poor.

Liberation News: What are the demands of the Hirak Rif movement?

SB: The main demand was to lift the militarization of the Rif. This is a crucial demand in the sense that it should usher in a new era of reconciliation between the regime and the Rif, as one has always oppressed the other, first by using internationally banned chemical weapons (napalm and white phosphorus) against unarmed civilians from 1924 to 1926, leaving the land unable to grow much anymore, and people suffering from cancer 75% more than the rest of regions in Morocco combined. Lifting the military siege means the locals can develop their cities and town, invest in factories and bring in thousands upon thousands of job opportunities.

The demands were also for a cancer treatment hospital, since every single household has at least one cancer patient, and they have to get on buses and travel between 800 and 1200 miles to get to the nearest center, in treacherous roads, in the middle of the Rif mountains, not maintained the way other roads and highways are in other parts of Morocco.

They wanted a university, so their kids won’t have to dorm for them to get an education, and not only have to live away from their parents, but face a dilemma as to whether or not it even makes sense for them to continue their education. These are the heads of household living in the militarized besieged Rif on meager wages, a child in university is a whole set of expenses they are not ready for at all. Many don’t get to go, and those who do, sometimes get help from their families abroad, which, at any given moment and because they are in a military territory, the government can interfere and accuse them of receiving foreign aid to destabilize the county, accusations that were directed at both Nacer Zefzafi and my personal friend Mohamed El Asrihi who got a Camera and a Phone back in 2012 from a family friend in Holland, and has now been sentenced to 5 years for receiving foreign aid in order to destabilize the country.

So the sum this up, the demands are:

To Lift the Militarization of the Rif by dismissing and cancelling out the militarization Dahir

To Build a Cancer treatment center in the region, accessible to all (It only makes sense since it was this regime that facilitate their genocide using chemical weapons, now it has to at least, provide treatment centers)

To Build a University in the Region, so their children won’t have to travel 1000+kms to get to the nearest university campus

To bring attention to the human development projects Morocco was advertising for the rest of the big cities in the country. Better roads, Hospitals and clinics and schools in every rural area etc.

They also demanded an independent investigative team to look into and get to the bottom of the murder of Mohcin Fikri. Investigating that means finding out who sold him the fish to begin with, and how they got it out of the port, and under whose name is the fishing license (Akhanouch) and will raise an issue as to why this one particular person has his hand in every single economic activity in Morocco, which will bring us to who allowed all these licenses and privileges without a care about the flagrant conflict of interest and the total lack of transparency and accountability the totalitarian Moroccan king enjoys …

Liberation News: The movement has suffered waves of repression from the state, with hundreds arrested since the crackdown on the movement last summer, can you give us an overview of the conditions in which political prisoners are held?

SB: Hundreds is not close to being true. We have gone now to about 2,200 detainee, many people refer to them as the kidnapped, seeing as the regular due process was not applied to them, making their arrests of a political nature, something the Moroccan regime continues to deny. When people from Al Hoceima get their houses raided by 60-80 heavily armed agents (Moroccans don’t have the right to bear arms) and terrorize and beat the entire family to take that one person in the most inhumane and humiliating way possible, some with no shirt or shoes on, shove them in helicopters, eyes bound, head covered in a hood as if they’re taking them to the firing squad, and then beat them threaten them and their families with rape, torture them by the Russian roulette no less and beat them into signing blank statements! Then take them 1,200 kms away to the headquarters of the National squad of the Judicial Police telling them they will never see their loved ones again. Charging them with the most ludicrous of charges, trying to intimidate them by telling them the said charges carry the death penalty!

The known leader (though a lot can be said about his leadership) Nacer Zefzafi was put in an individual cell by himself, whereas those, deemed most dangerous were held in the same prison, in different pavilions in groups, except for him. He spent the entire year and month of his detention alone, not able to communicate with, strategize with or exchange books, jokes or just companionship with his friends that he grew up with.

As for the rest, the prison administration changed its system and decided to not allow families to bring in any more food or hygiene or clothing items to the prisoners anymore. They can only bring them books that are not censored by the regime. A change in strategy that can only be explained by the vindictive nature of this regime and its deep hatred toward Rif and its people. The families now have to take the bus from Huceima at 9:00 PM and travel the 12 hours in dangerous roads overnight to make it outside of the prison by 9:00 AM, only to have to wait for a couple of hours before they can see their loved ones. The visits are two hours long, usually allowing two family members at a time, and only close family, a step brother can’t come, a brother or sister-in-law can’t come, only brothers sisters, first cousins, parents, grandparents and spouses and children and literally nobody else. No friends, no supporters, no extended family members … NOTHING.

The prison administration also finds ways to make their stay unpleasant by making up excuses for them not to use their daily phone allowances that they pay for out of pocket, especially when the prison administration has violated the rights of one prisoner, and does not want the word to get out to their families and attorneys. This has caused MANY unnecessary hunger strikes that could have been avoided.

Further, whenever Nacer Zefzafi and the Investigative Reporter Hamid EL Mahdaouy complain, they get taken to the punitive solitary (Kashou) which is very tiny, hard, with a toilet seat breaking the length of the bench they are supposed to sit and then sleep on.

The 54 detainees in the prison of Okacha have repeatedly complained of “allowed” items brought in by their families that never made it to their cells, and of punitive shake downs for no good reason to just displace and confiscate items previously allowed, under the pretext that it is a new rule.

Further, the prisoners have made several requests to continue their education while incarcerated, a right afforded to them under the Moroccan law, yet the warden continues to not want to honor.

Liberation News: The recent sentencing of multiple leaders of Hirak to 5-20 years in prison has beenthe most recent blow to the people’s movement. How do you envision the future of Hirak, and the solidarity between those on the outside and those incarcerated?

SB: The sheer anger, the disbelieve, the disgust in the street is all you see. Not even those who were royalists and/or paid by the regime to accuse the Rifians of separatism (which they never, not once, asked for) agreed with the sentences and thought they were very harsh. Many are claiming that the 20 year sentences are symbolic of the current king having been on the throne for 20 years now … as for me, I see punitive, unnecessarily harsh sentences against peaceful people for whom the entire world testified to their civility and organization. Much to the disappointment of the regime, who tried to paint them as these separatists, traitors who want to bring Morocco to its knees dragging it into a civil war. Those of us on the outside feel as if the entire country and here I am going to use the word Watan because it really loses its meaning when translated, it is the rape of a Watan, and the beheading of a nation, and the funeral of a people. We see this as a message for those in prison, that they are now isolated and alone, and for us on the outside that this is what awaits us if we follow suit.

Further and even more dangerously, that there is and never was an impartial judicial system, that this is all a charade so Morocco remains on the good graces of the international community. It reminds us who’s boss, who decides and how all other institutions execute and act as its dirty tool that always always always protects its interests!

Since the King is, according to the Moroccan constitution, the President of the Superior council of Justice, and all the sentences and verdicts are rendered in his name. When will said verdicts and sentences ever be impartial or unbiased under these totalitarian laws?

This was a slap in the faces of those watching, reminding them who rules with an iron fist, and that we are totally back to the years of lead and plomb and that there is and never has it been any reconciliation with the Rif.

Liberation News: Has the state repression of the movement strengthened the popular demand for demilitarization of the Rif region? What would demilitarization truly entail?

SB: In fact, the state militarized the region even more tightly than it did before and it extended said militarization to other neighboring cities in the north such as my city of Tangier, where I got a beating at the hands of the auxiliary forces for simply wearing an Imazighen Shawl and holding a phone in my hand, getting ready to take some pictures at the rally. Lifting the militarization decree means the region can see substantial projects that will revive the region economically and otherwise, it means that people won’t be afraid to sneeze for fear they’d be summoned, it means they can live their lives in peace, normally and if they break the law, it wouldn’t be aggravated and brought to a national threat level of charges, and that they’d have a normal police to inhabitants ratio as opposed to what they have now especially after they’ve imprisoned thousands and thousands more are wanted for similar charges and are in hiding, when thousands others migrated to other Moroccan cities, many took the risky zodiac boats crossing the Mediterranean sea in dangerous conditions being chased by coast guards, many of which end up capsizing in the middle of the way, losing the lives of most!

Liberation News: You have been organizing in solidarity with progressive Moroccan struggles for many years from the United States. How has the U.S. and Moroccan government responded to these solidarity protests?

SB: The U.S. afforded us the right to protest the Moroccan tyranny in many cities nationwide, many venues and many different actions. It is when we start to do more than just protesting and start to map out a path to ensure we represent the movement accurately here, and even reach out to Senators, political parties and Congress people to help us spread the word that this is happening in a country that the U.S. supports financially, militarily and politically, using American tax dollars, money that is wasting, oppressing and terrorizing those who protest peacefully and demand legitimate rights, as opposed to helping Morocco thwart foreign incursions or, better yet, redirect them toward internal interests, like meals on wheels, activities for inner city kids, supplies for all students, bringing art and music back, or migrating toward a single payer healthcare system. In addition, we have also been in touch with NGOs that, even though we know might still side with tyranny since they side with the U.S. and Israel against Palestinians, we still pressed ahead with petitions and correspondence to spread awareness and expose Morocco for what it is, and get some politicians and political parties to declare their adoption to this very just cause.

Liberation News: There has been a growing movement in the U.S. around the separation of immigrant families at the border. You have also been fighting for justice and reunification with your son and continue to do so from Morocco. How do you see the connections between the movement in the US and in Morocco?

SB: I actually see this as even bigger and more encompassing of not just what happens in these two countries. The constant unrest in Syria, Croatia, Venezuela and other countries are indicative of two things: That the vampires sucking our blood dry are now fighting each other, with the power balances not what they used to be! That is bound to change the geopolitical economic position of most of the players. I see the USA unhinged about the inhumanities and atrocities it commits in the name of hate and superiority and does not hesitate to even break international law, and go against humanity to instill further suffering and pain on the underprivileged. I see a multilayered attack on the non-whites, on the LGBTQ and on the poor all in one chaotic, confusing time. We are on the verge of a civil war of sorts. One where the supremacists will continue to show their ugliness, claiming it is their god’s given right, totally forgetting how they’ve annihilated 100 million Natives, raped, killed and plundered, sold their little ones, and sent them to boarding schools in an effort to totally eradicate their identity. These people felt they had the upper hand then, and are working tirelessly to go back to that, all the while passing subtle laws and bills that further curtail our liberties and shave so much off our rights, but we don’t notice because we’re so shocked y the blatant hate and racism.

This needs to be bought systematically, with committees that can each focus on ONE aspect no matter what else is going on, and come up with ways to fight back all the while communicating with other committees about their specialty struggle and figure out ways to collaborate and support each other while mapping out an end goal for all, supported by several milestones in each category to be able to systematically fight back the organized and well thought of chaos that the Trump administration throws at Americans.

This said, my situation with my son who was unjustly taken from me the day I was wrongly imprisoned even with an asylum claim pending is a gross miscarriage of justice and is the day humanity exited the premises. To not afford a mom the chance to present her asylum case before a judge, a universal right guaranteed to her by several treaties and conventions that the USA so proudly likes to have the world believe it respects, is inhumane. It could have landed me exactly where the Hirak leaders are because I too did the exact same thing they did. To separate a mother and her oldest child, and separate him from his stepfather who raised him, and his stepbrother with whom he lived and shared a room for a significant period of time, is simply inhumane for the mother who has done nothing but love her child wholesomely and unconditionally, and a child who was uprooted from everyone and every single thing that has ever been a part of his life before, to be thrown in the arms of a family he has never ever known before, in a different state, different school, no friends, no more family …

Talking about this subject always ends with me shedding hysterical tears and crying and losing myself further and further into radical solutions not just to my case but to the entire population suffering under this!

This isn’t fair! This won’t be solved by conventional means, this requires all of us together, trying what we’ve never tried before until hate is impeached and all his abominable decisions reversed and some sort of order is restored again!

Posted in MoroccoComments Off on Interview: Solidarity with the Al-Hirak Al-Shaabi Popular Movement

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Engineered Arts prosthetic expert Mike Humphrey checks on Fred, a recently completed Mesmer robot that was built at the company’s headquarters in Penryn on May 9, 2018 in Cornwall, England. (Photo: Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

“In emerging and Western democracies, data analytics and political bots are being used to poison the information environment, promote skepticism and distrust, polarize voting constituencies, and undermine the integrity of democratic processes.”

Engineered Arts prosthetic expert Mike Humphrey checks on Fred, a recently completed Mesmer robot that was built at the company’s headquarters in Penryn on May 9, 2018 in Cornwall, England. (Photo: Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

“Social media have gone from being the natural infrastructure for sharing collective grievances and coordinating civic engagement, to being a computational tool for social control.”
—Oxford study

“Social media manipulation is big business,” the researchers found. “We estimate that tens of millions of dollars are being spent on social media manipulation campaigns, involving tens of thousands of professional staff.”

While there is nothing new about political parties and governments using disinformation to manipulate elections at home and abroad, the Oxford researchers note that the massive, easily accessible, and lightly regulated platforms offered by Facebook and Twitter have become enormously powerful tools in the hands of political actors, who have used social media to kick their propaganda campaigns into overdrive and cast doubt on science and public institutions.

“Although closely related to some of the dirty tricks and negative campaigning we might expect in close races (and which have always played a part in political campaigning ), what makes this phenomenon unique is the deliberate use of computational propaganda to manipulate voters and shape the outcome of elections,” the study notes.

In 30 of the 48 countries examined, Oxford researchers discovered “evidence of political parties using computational propaganda during elections or referenda. In emerging and Western democracies, sophisticated data analytics and political bots are being used to poison the information environment, promote skepticism and distrust, polarize voting constituencies, and undermine the integrity of democratic processes.”

Despite recent efforts by Facebook, Twitter, and governments to rein in the proliferation of fake stories on social media, Oxford researchers found that the use of bots to quickly spread disinformation is growing exponentially.

“We actually found 38 countries used bots last year, compared with 17 in the year before,” Philip Howard, director of the Oxford Internet Institute and co-author of the new study, toldMcClatchy.

“Social media have gone from being the natural infrastructure for sharing collective grievances and coordinating civic engagement, to being a computational tool for social control, manipulated by canny political consultants, and available to politicians in democracies and dictatorships alike,” the study concludes. “We cannot wait for national courts to sort out the technicalities of infractions after running an election or referendum. Protecting our democracies now means setting the rules of fair play before voting day, not after.”

Posted in Media, UKComments Off on With Much Focus on Russian ‘Troll Farms,’ Oxford Study Shows Social Media Misinformation Campaigns Are ‘Big Business’ Worldwide

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After Warning of ‘Large and Painful Military Operation,’ Israel Begins Massive Bombing of Gaza

“Israeli snipers shoot and kill scores of unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, including kids, then calls it self-defense. When a Palestinian sniper fires at one Israeli soldier, Israel bombs Gaza with F-16s and preps for all out war.”

Just hours after Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned that Israel is gearing up to launch a “large and painful military operation” in Gaza that would rival Operation Protective Edge—a 2014 assault that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians—the Israeli military carried out “wide-scale” airstrikes across Gaza on Friday following weekly anti-occupation protests along the border fence.

The airstrikes began to slam Gaza just hours after Israeli soldiers gunned down at least three Palestinians during anti-occupation demonstrations. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says one of its soldiers was killed by retaliatory gunfire from the Palestinians.

“Israel, one of the most powerful military powers in the world, is about to launch a military campaign with F-16s, Tanks, Naval ships and drones against a besieged, stateless population in Gaza.”
—Yousef Munayyer, U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights

“Palestinian defense forces fired back at Israeli snipers who have been murdering Palestinian men, women, and children for weeks,” noted journalist Ali Abunimah.

Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, added: “Israeli snipers shoot and kill scores of unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, including kids, then calls it self-defense. When a Palestinian sniper fires at one Israeli soldier, Israel bombs Gaza with F-16s and preps for all out war.”

In response to Israel’s “massive” wave of airstrikes, activists began circulating the #StoptheWar hashtag in an effort to pressure the international community to step in and stop Israel’s efforts to launch yet another catastrophic assault on the “occupied, blockaded, unlivable, and exhausted Gaza Strip.”

Jehad Saleem@JehadibnSaleem

#StopTheWar is a hashtag coming from many activists in #Gaza who urge the international community to hinder Israel’s attempts to launch another large-scale aggression against the occupied, blockaded, unlivable, and exhausted Gaza Strip. #GazaUnderAttack

Israel, one of the most powerful military powers in the world, is about to launch a military campaign with F-16s, Tanks, Naval ships and drones against a besieged, stateless population in Gaza, a infinitesimal percentage of whom flew burning kites and balloons. KITES AND BALLOONS

Munayyer of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights argued in a tweet on Friday that the airstrikes are a deliberate escalation that is merely a precursor to a broader military attack on Gaza.

“Israel has been planning another war on Gaza for some time. They recently conducted exercises, declared Friday as an ultimatum day, and the Americans to wrote a WaPo oped to open the Israeli propaganda campaign,” Munayyer noted, referring to an opinion piece co-authored by White House adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, which blames Hamas for Israel’s brutal decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory.

“Seems Israel is hell bent on war, again,” Munayyer added.

Israel’s latest bombardment of Gaza comes just days after Israel further intensified its collective punishment of the Palestinian people by imposing “genocidal” trade restrictions on the occupied territory.

Edo Konrad@edokonrad

BREAKING: There is a way to avoid war and it has to do with lifting the 11-year-old blockade on Gaza.

NOVANEWS

Israel Just Dropped the Pretense of Equality for Palestinian Citizens

The so-called “Jewish nation-state” bill formalizes in Israeli law the superior rights and privileges that Jewish citizens of the state enjoy over its indigenous Palestinian minority, who comprise roughly 20% of the population

Arab lawmakers stand up in protest during a Knesset session in Jerusalem on July 19. (Photo: Olivier Fitoussi / Associated Press)

The Israeli Knesset on Thursday passed into law a bill designed to make a permanent underclass of Palestinian citizens. It threatens to set the country on a course to full-blown Jewish theocracy.

The so-called “Jewish nation-state” bill formalizes in Israeli law the superior rights and privileges that Jewish citizens of the state enjoy over its indigenous Palestinian minority, who comprise roughly 20% of the population. It demotes Arabic from one of two official languages to a mere “special” status, deepens racial segregation by directing the government to “encourage and promote” Jewish settlement, and declares that the right to self-determination in Israel is “exclusive” to the Jewish people, denying the history and ancient Palestinian roots in this land. It also prioritizes the Jewishness of the state over its democratic character, omitting any reference to “democracy” or “equality.

The final reading of the nation-state bill took place just days after the Knesset rejected a bill that I, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and Knesset member, had introduced. My bill called for Israel to guarantee full equality for all of its citizens, regardless of religion or race. A similar bill introduced in June calling for Israel to be a country “for all its citizens” was banned from even being discussed. The fate of these three bills confirms what Palestinians have always known: In Israel, only Jews enjoy the full rights and privileges of citizenshi

The nation-state bill further marginalizes my community and entrenches Israel’s regime of racial discrimination and deterioration into apartheid.

The final reading of the nation-state bill took place just days after the Knesset rejected a bill that I, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and Knesset member, had introduced. My bill called for Israel to guarantee full equality for all of its citizens, regardless of religion or race. A similar bill introduced in June calling for Israel to be a country “for all its citizens” was banned from even being discussed. The fate of these three bills confirms what Palestinians have always known: In Israel, only Jews enjoy the full rights and privileges of citizenship.

The nation-state bill further marginalizes my community and entrenches Israel’s regime of racial discrimination and deterioration into apartheid.

The tension of being a Palestinian citizen of a country that defines itself as Jewish has shaped every aspect of my life, from early childhood to my career as a human rights activist and a member of Israel’s parliament today.

I was born in Umm al Fahem, which pre-dates the state of Israel and is one of the largest Palestinian towns in the country. Although it is bigger and older than the Jewish municipalities that surround it, the residents of Umm al Fahem are denied the same quality of public services that Jewish towns receive, including in healthcare and public transportation.

I first began to understand the unequal nature of Israeli society when I was 12 years old and started going to school in nearby Nazareth. Because we didn’t have a bus station, I had to hitch a ride to and from class each day and witness the stark contrast between the crumbling buildings, roads, and other underfunded public infrastructure in Umm al Fahem and those of the affluent Jewish towns I traveled through.

Every day, I would also pass by the village where members of my mother’s family lived before Israel’s establishment, Al Lajjun. They were uprooted and told they could not return. Israel’s destruction of Palestinian communities like my ancestral village continues today, in places like Umm al-Hiran, a town in southern Israel facing destruction so that it can be replaced with a city for Jews (to be called “Hiran”).

The nation-state bill further marginalizes my community and entrenches Israel’s regime of racial discrimination and deterioration into apartheid. It will lead to more racist, anti-democratic laws, adding to the more than 50 laws already on the books that disadvantage non-Jewish citizens.

In contrast, the bill I introduced called for the country to become a democracy that guarantees complete civil and national equality to all who live within its borders. It would have ensured that Israeli law is based on universal values that recognize both Arab and Jewish ethnic groups. The state would have been required to invest the wealth of this land for the benefit of all of its citizens, not just a privileged majority. There would be equal status for the Arabic language and culture, and inclusive national symbols, so Palestinian girls and boys would feel welcome in their own country, and no longer have to be represented by a country’s flag containing religious symbols that are not their own.

Like President Trump in the United States and right-wing demagogues elsewhere, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government wish to turn the clock back on humanity’s march toward a freer, more just and egalitarian world. Imagine if Trump and the Republican Party passed a constitutional amendment declaring the U.S. to be officially a Christian state, formally subordinating the country’s democracy to right-wing, fundamentalist Christian principles, and encouraging American cities and towns to exclude Jews, Muslims and indigenous Americans.

That is the situation that Palestinians in Israel face today. As we continue our struggle for equal citizenship and the just rights of Palestinians everywhere, we call on our brothers and sisters of conscience in the U.S. and around the world to support our shared vision for enlightened democracy and the well-being of all people, regardless of race or religion.

An official visit during the centenary year of the Balfour Declaration could be another nail in the coffin of the British Monarchy

You know that awful feeling of doom when bad news makes your blood run cold? It’s happened to me at least four times already this year:

when Theresa May invited Trump on a state visit to the UK when he’d been in office only five minutes and clearly ought to be on probation for at least two years;

when the British government announced it was going to whoop it up for the centenary of the Balfour Declaration;

when the British government announced it had invited Israel’s chief criminal, Binyamin Netanyahu, to those Balfour celebrations; and

when news came the other day that a member of the British royal family might break precedent and formally visit Israel later this year.

That fourth one had the Times of Israel crowing with delight. Its report succeeds in portraying Prince Charles as the perfect stooge while Boris Johnson is having a bad hair day as usual. Such a visit would, of course, legitimise Israel as an illegal occupying power and destroy the last shred of British credibility in the Middle East and indeed the rest of the civilised world. But that counts for nothing among the bird-brains that run our country.

Let’s remember how this Balfour lunacy began, Arthur Balfour (later Lord Balfour) being British foreign secretary at the time and a Zionist convert.

His Declaration of 1917 – actually a letter to the most senior Jew in England, Lord Rothschild – pledged assistance for the Zionist cause with total disregard for the consequences to the native majority in the land the Zionists had targeted: Palestine.

Calling itself a declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations, it said:

His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing and non-Jewish communities…

Balfour also wrote:

In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country. The four powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now occupy that land.

The “running sore in the East” and how it turned septic

Obviously, there was opposition. Lord Sydenham warned:

The harm done by dumping down an alien population upon an Arab country may never be remedied. What we have done, by concessions not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, is to start a running sore in the East, and no-one can tell how far that sore will extend.

Well, we know now, a hundred years on.

So what was behind it? I like the account of Jewish businessman Benjamin Freedman who gave a speech at the Willard Hotel, Washington, in 1961. He told his audience that Britain, in World War I, was in dire straits thanks to the success of the German U-boats. It was alone, almost out of ammunition and on the edge of starvation. Germany offered peace terms, and while Britain chewed it over the Zionists of Germany (representing the Zionists of Eastern Europe who wanted an end to the Czar) came to London and said: “We will guarantee to bring the United States into the war as your ally, to fight with you on your side, if you will promise us Palestine after you win the war.” And that was the bargain Britain struck, in October 1916, overturning earlier pledges to the Arabs for their help.

And having done their bit, the Zionists wanted a “receipt” – written confirmation of Britain’s pledge. Hence Balfour’s infamous “Declaration” in November the following year, a grubby note addressed to Lord Rothschild promising to pay off the Zionists with land that wasn’t Britain’s to give.

When the war was over a large delegation of Jews attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. According to Freedman, who was there, when the Great Powers carved up the losers’ territories – German and Ottoman – the Jewish delegation claimed Palestine, producing Balfour’s promissory note.

In August 1917, while the Palestine deal was still being discussed but before Balfour issued his Declaration, Lord Montague penned an important memorandum to the British cabinet. Montague, only the second Jew to serve in a British cabinet, was minister of munitions in 1916 when, said Freedman, Britain was running out of ammunition. He wanted to place on record that in his opinion the policy of the British government was anti-Semitic because it would provide a rallying ground for anti-Semites in every country in the world. “Zionism has always seemed to me to be a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom,” he said. He assumed that Zionism meant that Muslims and Christians were to make way for the Jews and that Jews would be put in all positions of preference.

No such a thing as a Jewish nation

Montague argued that there was no such thing as a Jewish nation, and he was well aware of the unpopularity of the Jewish community. “We have obtained a far greater share of this country’s goods and opportunities than we are numerically entitled to… Many of us have been exclusive in our friendships and intolerant in our attitude…”

As for the Balfour Declaration itself, he felt the government was carrying out the wishes of a Zionist organisation “largely run by men of enemy descent or birth”. Furthermore, he said, “I would be almost tempted to proscribe the Zionist organisation as illegal and against the national interest.” His message to Lord Rothschild was that the government should help Jews in Palestine enjoy liberty of settlement and life on equal terms with inhabitants who hold other religious beliefs, but go no further.

The insane Declaration was followed 30 years later by another monstrous betrayal when the Great Powers pushed the United Nations into cruelly partitioning Palestine, again without consulting those who lived there. Worse still, the UN did nothing to halt the Jewish terror spree and land grab that followed.

Celebrating Balfour amounts to praising the thieves for keeping what they stole

Justice groups are now saying it’s time the British government, which accepted the mandated responsibility for the Holy Land up to 1948, had the good manners to admit its part in the catastrophe and say sorry for the needless damage and suffering caused to Palestinian Arabs who once considered themselves Britain’s allies. That would be a reasonable starting point for dealing with the horrendous situation today.

Celebrating Balfour amounts to praising the thieves for keeping what they stole. Those who cannot stomach such a cowardly betrayal of Christian and Muslim communities in the Holy Land may consider signing a petition addressed the the Queen’s private secretary asking that she does not travel to Israel at this time. It points out that the situation vis-à-vis Palestine is regarded by the Foreign Office as “unfinished business” and a royal visit would not only add insult to injury to the Palestinians but embroil Her Majesty in a controversy that could damage the international standing of the British monarchy.

The time for the royal family to start being nice to Israel is when Israel starts being nice to its Palestinian neighbours, honours its obligations under the UN Charter, ends its illegal occupation and shows proper regard for international and humanitarian law.

And not before.

Posted in Palestine Affairs, ZIO-NAZI, UKComments Off on Will the Zionist British royal family celebrate 100 years of shame by endorsing ‘Israel’?